Thiel Acquired by Private Equity Firm

The article mentioned that Gary was a long time Thiel employee. I though he was a fairly new employee?

So who will be designing the speakers now? After Jim passed, they came out with the CS2.4SE which is a CS2.4 with boutique caps and some cosmetic changes. Making new versions of existing products did not seem sustainable to me. I figured that's all they could do without Jim, then they came out with the CS2.7. Who designed that speaker, and who is going to design future products?

No. The 2.4SE was Jim's last hands on project. It was released after the 3.7 and bears his signature. It wasn't a big change but IMHO the upgrades over the regular 2.4 (upgraded finishing, aluminium outriggers, caps) would have cost similar to the 2.4 with the better finishings/outriggers.

That said, the 2.7 released after Jim's passing does seem to bear a Jim Thiel trait where a new model starts making a higher range model look obsolete :)

But this was all before the buyout so who knows.

Pops - I certainly hope it turns into a good thing.

I have such respect for the Thiel brand that I am probably a little overly concerned. Private equity groups are there to make money, but perhaps some growth and efficiencies can be gained without negatively impacting their hard earned reputation as an engineering-first company.

It is odd to me that there was no identification of the private equity group in the press release - standard procedure would be to get their name out. Most PEGs have a 3 to 5 year investment horizon. I would take an educated guess that we will see little change in the next 3 months, but should have a clearer idea of their strategic direction within the next 6 to 9 months...

Fingers crossed. In the meantime, any Thiel fans have their eye on any up and coming speaker designers?

IMHO the marque was just less relevant than in times of yore. The market is moving away from low sensitivity, low impedance, speakers and perhaps the core fans of the brand were just not enough to sustain it in a changing environment. The relentless move upmarket probably didn't help.

The article doesn't state it, but (I assume it's the same guy) Bill Thomas (new CEO) is a partner at GKB Capital in Kansas City. AFAIK, they're more an agency/advisory shop than a principal, so the deal is a little unusual. It also makes it hard to know from GKB's track record what they might have in mind for the company.

Marty